Blogging as effective journalism

James Kendrick

Nov. 2, 2004 - 9:41 AM PDT
Nov. 2, 2004 - 9:41 AM PDT

Journalism students at the University of Florida are learning first hand the effectiveness of blogging as a tool for reporting the news. The nine reporters-to-be are covering the election using Cingular camera phones and blogging the election in both text and photos. The students are seeing for themselves how effective it can be to cover an event without the trappings of mainstream journalists. The interesting comments deal with the fact that inserting full camera crews with lighting, etc., can “change” the event itself because the people being covered react to the media. On the other hand blogging with a simple camera phone allows the event to proceed as it normally would. The assumption could be made that the coverage of events like this would be more accurate this way. The student’s moblog can be viewed at their web site. It will be interesting to see what happens when real mainstream media starts covering happenings via blogging. That will lead to a question- is it still blogging if journalists do it? Or is blogging an amateur only pastime by definition.(Cingular press release via Yahoo news)